The television airwaves were filled Sunday with rat-a-tat over reforming the nation's health-care system, as top administration officials hit the talk show circuit and interest groups waged a record advertising blitz.

The White House is waiting for Congress to settle on a final health care bill, even though President Barack Obama has a clear preference in favor of at least one specific - the much-debated public option, advisers said.

Obama, however, will not demand that legislation include a government-run insurance plan intended to drive down costs through competition with private insurers, they said.

Despite growing frustration with the way health insurers deny medical treatments, major healthcare bills pending in Congress would give patients little new power to challenge those sometimes life-and-death decisions.

The government programs that provide health care to the poor would expand to cover nearly one in five Americans under health insurance legislation pending in Congress, putting pressure on federal and state budgets.

Now that the shouting from August's town hall meetings has died down and Congress has made progress on a health care overhaul, there's growing agreement among policy experts about how Medicare will be affected.

As an $829 billion, 10-year health care bill approved by the Senate Finance Committee moves toward debate by the full Senate this month, the insurance industry and the Obama administration are increasingly at odds over key provisions in the bill.

Geisinger Health System has been widely hailed as a model for health reform by leading Democrats including President Obama. But, its success may hinge on a rare combination of factors including a relative lack of competition, its stable patient base, and the fact that its 800 doctors are on salary, as well as an in-house pharmacy and insurance plan that covers one-third of its patients. If that's the case, Geisinger's particular achievements may not be replicable elsewhere.

Months ago, when President Barack Obama made health care his top domestic priority and picked the White House team to make it happen, he selected individuals for just this moment -- not for the beginning or the middle of the campaign, but for the end of the fight.